JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As the federal government moves towards rescheduling marijuana, opening the door for more research and opportunities for businesses in the industry, Florida leaders aren\u2019t budging on the issue. <\/p>\n
Marijuana remains illegal outside of medical use, and possession of more than 20 grams carries felony charges.<\/p>\n
In 2024, an effort to legalize recreational use just barely missed the mark, receiving more than 55 percent support from voters.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n It needed 60 to pass.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, this is not a question of if, it is a question of when,\u201d said Josephine Cannella-Krehl with The Flowery, one of Florida\u2019s 28 authorized medical marijuana treatment centers.<\/p>\n With yet another effort to put full legalization on the 2026 ballot, Cannella-Krehl argued lawmakers would be better served to legalize recreational use on their own, rather than waiting for a constitutional amendment to force their hand.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich would give them the opportunity to regulate it as opposed to waiting to see what happens when the constitutional amendment passes and then, again, they\u2019re strong-armed,\u201d said Cannella-Krehl.<\/p>\n But the renewed effort to legalize cannabis is also headed for a tough battle.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n This week, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier petitioned the State Supreme Court to decide whether this year\u2019s effort to legalize recreational marijuana can be placed on next year\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s technically just a procedural move he\u2019s required to do, given his history fighting the legalization effort in 2024, it\u2019s safe to assume he\u2019ll likely ask the court to block this year\u2019s measure.<\/p>\n Cannella-Krehl argued that if lawmakers won\u2019t follow the lead of the President, they should at least listen to their own voters.<\/p>\n \u201cIf 70 percent of Floridians are saying that they want adult use passed and our lawmakers are not being the voice of the people up at the legislature, then I mean that kind of tells me something,\u201d said Cannella-Krehl.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s recreational marijuana initiative currently has more than 675,000 valid signatures.<\/p>\n It needs just over 200,000 more by February to qualify for the ballot, assuming the state supreme court doesn\u2019t block it.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As the federal government moves towards rescheduling marijuana, opening the door for more research and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,127685,13816,210709,3188,723,3171,210707,7310,3005,77156,127687,210706,425,33769,138993,290,210708,210710,210705,28496,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-461970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-attorney_general","10":"tag-ben_becker","11":"tag-canelo_krell","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-floridians","15":"tag-flowery","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-jake","18":"tag-jake_stan","19":"tag-james_ufmeyer","20":"tag-josephine_canela_krell","21":"tag-local","22":"tag-president_donald_trump","23":"tag-president_trump","24":"tag-state","25":"tag-state_supreme_court","26":"tag-stofan","27":"tag-supreme_court","28":"tag-tanika_hughes","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-of-america","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115756994788110671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}